The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

Update: 9/17: This legislation passed 236 to 189 the House of Representatives yesterday. The Senate is not scheduled to vote on the same legislation. Instead, it is working on a drafting a different plan that would give a handful of southern states the option to expand offshore drilling. It is questionable whether anything can be passed by year end. Also, President Bush has said he would veto the version passed by the house, if such a plan is passed. (But all the representatives who voted for the legislation can tell their constituents they did so!)

Legislation that would remove the ban on offshore drilling is now being debated in Congress, and can be seen on C-Span. What is involved? The area involved is a band between 50 and 100 miles out, along the East and West coasts. These are areas that may contain a little oil, but are not areas where geological evidence would suggest that a significant amount of oil is likely to be available.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) held a conference call with bloggers on Tuesday, July 31, to answer questions about API's position on energy legislation.

A link to a recording of the conference call (or most of it--the recording was cut off due to technical difficulties) can be found here. A transcript can be found here.

The API is not at all happy with the House legislation. One of the bloggers asked if there was anything in the 800 pages of legislation the API could support.

Gerald Kerry (of Platts): It doesn't look like there is much of anything you could support.

Jim Ford: That's right. This is Jim Ford with Government Affairs at API. And basically, you look at the provisions that are in the House bill, and it has a negative impact on current and future domestic production. It has limitations on expanding refining capacity. . . . So it has an extremely negative impact. It just far outweighs anything else that you might consider positive.